Tag: Mike Pence

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A Pence for My Thoughts: A Hint About the Face of G-d at the End of Days

So Michael Pence has in his name Peni’el, Pen from Pence and Keil from Micha’el, the mighty prince of Israel who informed Avraham and Sarah at this time, next year, you will have a son, a son who will be circumcised on the 8th day. So Ya’akov received the name Yisrael at Alot HaShachar after the all night wrestling match with SamKel (the angel of Edom). There are 72 minutes between Alot HaShachar and sunrise, 70 years of birthpangs + 2 years of Chezkat Mashiach while Mashiach proves himself. So how do we know that we are entering those final two years before sunrise? From the following in Bereishit 32:

כה וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב, לְבַדּוֹ; וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ, עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר. 25 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day (Alot HaShachar).
כו וַיַּרְא, כִּי לֹא יָכֹל לוֹ, וַיִּגַּע, בְּכַף-יְרֵכוֹ; וַתֵּקַע כַּף-יֶרֶךְ יַעֲקֹב, בְּהֵאָבְקוֹ עִמּוֹ. 26 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained (The Holocaust, a very deep wound resulting from a Churban at the end of the dark night just before Alot HaShachar.   Me’am Loez said this sinew corresponds with the negative commandment against Rechilut.  There are 365 sinews in the human body, and there are 365 negative commandments including the mitzvah against Rechilut (talebearing).  In this case the talebearing was the talebearing of  bar Kamtza against Kamtza which destroyed the 2nd Temple.), as he wrestled with him.
כז וַיֹּאמֶר שַׁלְּחֵנִי, כִּי עָלָה הַשָּׁחַר; וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא אֲשַׁלֵּחֲךָ, כִּי אִם-בֵּרַכְתָּנִי. 27 And he said: ‘Let me go, for the dawn breaketh.’ And he said: ‘I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.’
כח וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, מַה-שְּׁמֶךָ; וַיֹּאמֶר, יַעֲקֹב. 28 And he said unto him: ‘What is thy name?’ And he said: ‘Jacob.’
כט וַיֹּאמֶר, לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ–כִּי, אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל: כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים, וַתּוּכָל. 29 And he said: ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.’the founding of the State of Israel at Alot HaShachar in 5708
ל וַיִּשְׁאַל יַעֲקֹב, וַיֹּאמֶר הַגִּידָה-נָּא שְׁמֶךָ, וַיֹּאמֶר, לָמָּה זֶּה תִּשְׁאַל לִשְׁמִי; וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתוֹ, שָׁם. 30 And Jacob asked him, and said: ‘Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.’ And he said: ‘Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?’ And he, (the angel of Edom) blessed him there.
לא וַיִּקְרָא יַעֲקֹב שֵׁם הַמָּקוֹם, פְּנִיאֵל: כִּי-רָאִיתִי אֱלֹהִים פָּנִים אֶל-פָּנִים, וַתִּנָּצֵל נַפְשִׁי. 31 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: ‘for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’
לב וַיִּזְרַח-לוֹ הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ, כַּאֲשֶׁר עָבַר אֶת-פְּנוּאֵל; וְהוּא צֹלֵעַ, עַל-יְרֵכוֹ. 32 And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Penu’el, and he limped upon his thigh.(72 minutes after Alot HaShachar which is likely 72 years since 5708).

Now I can hear already the shouting and the screaming.  Michael Pence is a Trinitarian.  He is a Xtian who may or may not believe in the mangod as his god or as G-d’s partner in addition to the Creator of the Universe as G-d Himself.  So I simply point out, that it is the angel of Edom who wrestled with Ya’akov, and it is THAT angel who blesses Ya’akov at Alot HaShachar BEFORE the Truth of G-d’s Oneness has become obvious to Mankind.  That only takes place at Sunrise, 72 minutes later.  And wow, did Mike Pence deliver in his speech before the Knesset.  He issued brachot since Rosh Chodesh Shevat that cannot be taken back.  We have no idea if Donald Trump might “change his mind” about Eretz Yisrael because he thinks that he can put into motion the real estate deal of the century and with his chutzpah, might bring world peace. 

I realize that Donald Trump according to observations of rational people, is emotionally “unreliable” and that he, like the kings of ancient Persia from whom his soul root seems to come, might change his mind on a whim of intense emotion.  On the other hand, he seems to be doing teshuvah, and the man who ran for President is now more grounded in a complementary set of moral principles than the man who was running for POTUS in 5776.  And by the way, in this sphere of making and implementing stable and consistent policies, Pence is very emotionally stable and emotionally reliable.  And for sure, there was never a question in the General election. 

The Suha Arafat hugging Amaleqia whom he ran against in the General election would have been ten thousand times more evil than Trump could have ever hoped to be.  If she, the Hilly in Oholibama, the Hivite snake, had won, we would already hear the roar of international troops intent of making Judea and Samaria and half of Yerushalayim Judenrein in the Jordan Valley sent by UN Sec Council decree, G-d forbid.  So Baruch HaShem, HaShem has been kind, and now that the time to receive Edom’s brachah has arrived, it has arrived in spades.  “And he has recognized us as the same people who received the Torah and settled the land for over 1300 years from 2488 until the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 3830 and the crushing of the bar Kochba Revolt 65 years later in 3895.

They, he and his boss, have recognized our eternal connection to the Holy City where G-d Himself has dwelt in our midst where He Himself has placed His Holy Name.  Even if the former Rav of the British Empire, Yonatan Sacks Shlit”a, wrote half of his speech, Mike Pence sought him out to help him reach a spiritual height in order to dispense a brachah from the mouth of an angel that no change of policy on a whim can possible remove.

If you want to comment on why there is a S sounding ending at the end of V.P. Pence’s last name, by all means let me know.  I have not yet figured that one out.  In light of all this, I would love to link to this beautiful song written and originally performed by Rav Shlomo Carlbach.  It is one of his 600 melodies that he wrote in his lifetime.  During his lifetime, it was not one of his most popular melodies, and it seems to have been given a revival as other artists have sung this song posthumously, including this version by Mordechai ben David.  It is now a mainstay at every Jewish wedding.  Perhaps its latent popularity is because we all know deep down that those 72 years are reaching completion.  I commented on the Youtube page about this video.

Originally Published at Years of Awe

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Trump Derangement Syndrome as Leftists Target Britain’s Former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks

Originally published in Breitbart
Trump Derangement Syndrome reached a new low last week, as Jewish leftists in America and Britain waged a brutal assault against Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Britain.

It isn’t only President Donald Trump that the “Resistance” seeks to destroy. And their bloodlust isn’t limited to those who work for him, or even to his voters.

If you so much as help the administration achieve a goal that you believe in, for the “Resistance,” you are a criminal.

Sacks served as Britain’s chief rabbi from 1991 through 2013. He is arguably the most widely respected Jewish religious leader in the English-speaking world.

Sacks stands out for his universal accessibility. His written and oral Torah commentaries appeal to Jewish and non-Jewish religious scholars, and to the Jewish and non-Jewish layman, alike.

During his long tenure as Britain’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Sacks developed close working relationships with Britain’s leaders. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, David Cameron and John Major all sought his guidance during their respective tenures as prime minister. They called on Sacks to help them prepare public comments that touched on themes of his scholarship.

And so, too, did U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Last week, Pence gave an extraordinary address before Israel’s Knesset. It isn’t often that a single speech rises to the level of an historic event. But Pence’s address easily crossed the line that separates a great speech from an epic address.

In his speech, Pence gave the clearest expression of Zionism – the Jewish national liberation movement — any non-Jewish leader has ever presented. In so doing, he demolished former President Barack Obama’s narrative legacy in the Middle East. This was a critical achievement.

In June 2009, Obama laid out his ideological approach at his speech “to the Muslim world,” which he delivered at Cairo University. Obama embraced the Islamist view of Israel as a colonialist outpost of European imperialists, and of the Jews as rootless wanderers, with no historical ties — let alone indigenous rights — to the Land of Israel.

Israel, under the Arab-Islamist interpretation, is either the consequence of a conspiracy of Europeans to oppress, divide and conquer the Arabs, or a means for Europeans to expiate their collective guilt for the Holocaust.

Obama said that America’s “strong bonds” to Israel are “based upon … the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust…”.

Israeli politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum were scandalized by Obama’s remarks.

Obama was almost as contemptuous of America as he was of Israel.

Throughout his speech he drew a moral equivalence between the U.S. and its Islamist enemies: Iran and America were equally responsible for their bad relations; the U.S. was just as bad at respecting religious freedom as Islamic regimes; and so on and so forth.

By adopting the anti-American and anti-Semitic Islamist narrative of history, Obama destroyed America’s ability to wage a war of ideas in the Muslim world.

So long as the Trump administration failed to renounce this view, it remained America’s position.

But Last Monday, in his speech before the Knesset, Pence relegated Obama’s intellectual legacy on the Middle East to the dustbin of history.

In elegant prose rich in quotes from the Scriptures, Pence transported his audience through space and time over thousands of years and three continents. He disavowed Obama’s perception of Israel as a colonial outpost born of Holocaust guilt. Instead, Pence restored Israel and America to their rightful positions in human history as the bearers of the torch of freedom.

Pence said, “We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil, and in liberty over tyranny.

“We stand with Israel because that’s what Americans have always done, and so has it been since my country’s earliest days.”

He continued, “In the story of the Jews, we’ve always seen the story of America. It is the story of an exodus, a journey from persecution to freedom, a story that shows the power of faith and the promise of hope.”

Without mentioning it, Pence rejected the Islamist libel that Jews have no roots in the land of Israel. He said, “The Jewish people held fast to a promise through all the ages, written so long ago, that ‘even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens,’ from there He would gather and bring you back to the land which your fathers possessed.”

Far from being regrettable but understandable byproducts of the Holocaust, as Obama alleged, Pence demonstrated that Zionism and the State of Israel are the natural consequences of the millennial attachment of the Jews to the land of their forefathers.

In the weeks before he came to Israel, Pence told his associates that he was determined to give the most pro-Israel speech ever delivered by a non-Jewish leader at the Knesset. So as he prepared his speech, like Blair and Browne, Cameron and Major, he turned to Rabbi Sacks for guidance.

Rabbi Sacks met with the Vice President in New York for ninety minutes. He helped Pence to develop the themes he wished to discuss in his address. In the weeks that followed their meeting, Pence’s office sent early drafts of his address to Sacks for his comments.

If Pence’s name had been Joe Biden, he would have been congratulated by the entire Jewish world for reaching out to Sacks. And Sacks would have been celebrated by one and all as a towering Jewish figure who helped to craft one of the most important speeches about the Jewish people, the Jewish faith, and the Jewish state ever given by a non-Jewish leader.

But alas, we are not living in normal times.

We are living at a time where the left deems anyone who treats the Trump administration as legitimate as an enemy of the people. We live in times when Jews on the left are unable to distinguish friend from foe, or discern their own interests.

The leftist Jewish media flew into a rage when Sacks’ role in drafting Pence’s speech was reported.

By helping Pence, Batya Ungar-Sargon at the far-left Jewish Forward raged, Sacks empowered Pence’s faith, which she abhors.

“Pence believes God has a plan, not just for him but also for everyone, especially if he agrees with his numerous co-religionist white evangelicals who believe that we are living in the end times.”

At London’s liberal Jewish Chronicle, the writers are beside themselves. Referring to Pence as “loathsome,” Marcus Dysch wrote: “What on earth is Jonathan Sacks, the erudite, polite, shy Englishman doing getting involved with the homophobic, extreme Christian campaigner against women’s rights who is currently serving as Vice President of the United States?”

Dysch then all but accused Sacks of selling his soul for money, writing, “There will be countless wealthy churches across Republican states now falling over themselves to invite Lord Sacks to speak.”

Matthew Gindin, an anti-Zionist Jewish leftist and former Buddhist monk, wrote that Sacks “embodies a communal failure which threatens both the Jewish soul and future.”

Sacks, Gindin said, “has chosen to sell out for Jewish power and glory.”

Notably, neither Dysch nor Gindin wrote a word about Pence’s support for Israel. They didn’t applaud his stated commitment to finding a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, for instance, which was a section of the speech that drew a standing ovation from Israel’s leftist lawmakers at the Knesset.

They didn’t care about that. Like Ungar-Sargon and a half dozen other writers that piled on against Pence, they hate Pence, and they hate Sacks for helping Pence, because Pence is Trump’s vice president, and because he is an evangelical Christian who takes his faith seriously. And now they hate Sacks because he helped Pence to prepare and deliver the most stunning message of support for Israel any non-Jewish leader has ever given.

It is hard to see a happy end to this madness for the Jewish Left.

Under President Trump, America is moving from strength to strength.

Just as Trump’s tax cuts brought immediate benefits to the U.S. economy, so his decision to make truth, rather than jihadist propaganda, the basis of his Middle East policy is already paying dividends.

After eight years in which Obama wouldn’t say a bad word about jihad but had no end of bad words for America and its allies, less than a week after Pence ground to dust Obama’s ideological legacy in the Middle East, the impact was already being felt.

The Muslim World League served for decades as one of the largest disseminators of jihadist doctrine worldwide. Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the leader of the Muslim World League published a letter condemning the Holocaust and Holocaust denial.

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa called the Holocaust “an incident that shook humanity to the core and created an event whose horrors could not be denied or underrated by any fair-minded or peace-loving person.”

“True Islam,” he added, “is against these crimes.”

Where President Trump’s determination to base America’s Middle East policy on the truth will lead is still unknown. But what is abundantly clear is that wherever it takes us will be a far better place than where Obama’s obsequious appeasement was moving the world.

Sacks should be proud of his contribution to Pence’s epic speech. He did a great service to America and to the Jewish people by helping to formulate the clearest expression of America’s historical ties to the people of Israel ever spoken. Pence is to be congratulated for turning to him for advice.

As for their liberal Jewish detractors, the longer they are moved by their hatreds rather than their reason, the more irrelevant they will become as the world moves on, freed from the moral and cognitive shackles of Obama’s intellectual legacy.

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Praising Pence: An Israeli View

Yesterday concluded Vice President Mike Pence’s first official visit to the Holy Land. After his previous planned Middle East trip was delayed by the all-important Congressional Tax Reform, using his Vice Presidential tie-breaking vote to pass it, he has kept his promise to make an official visit. After two months have passed since President Trump confirmed what the Jewish people have known for over 3,000 years, that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Israel; now his Vice President has met with Egyptian, Jordanian, and Israeli officials at a vital turning point in the Middle East.

Since the Trump Administration’s announcement, there has been some push back, which was generally accepted to happen. Though, the push-back on recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel 20 years ago could have started a major conflict against Israel. Today, we have seen a sharp change in the region, with the Sunni Arab states inching closer to normalisation with Israel, the push-back has only come from the misguided Palestinian Authority.

Over his trip, Vice President Pence gave his address to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament in Jerusalem. He spoke on the recognition of Jerusalem, Iran’s destructive actions in the region, the strength of the US-Israel relationship, and on bringing about a final peace agreement between Israel and their Arab neighbors. He also met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Rivlin, another great opportunity for these world leaders to speak on the challenges facing Israel and region. Not to mention the Vice President’s solidification that the United States is keeping their promise to move their embassy to Jerusalem by 2019!

On the Vice President’s scheduled to visit Yad VaShem, Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, he was able to pay his respects. A visit that many world leaders make, understanding the lessons of the Holocaust is of global importance. As a proud Jew, I thank the Vice President for taking the time to learn about the atrocities that in the modern era has heavily impacted the decisions of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Since President Trump’s historic decision to give full American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital, there has been tension and much banter between the Trump Administration and the Palestinian Authority. Now the Vice President has finished his first state visit to Israel. As the Israeli people embraced the decision, we welcomed the Vice President with open arms. I praise Vice President Pence on keeping his trip, especially when he has had many opportunities to cancel, mostly due to Congressional votes and backlash from the Palestinian Authority. I hope the Vice President has had an enjoyable and productive trip, I know that there will be another visit here, where he will be able to complete his tour with a trip to Bethlehem and much more of the Land of Israel!

Originally Published in Times of Israel

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FAKE NEWS: Andrea Mitchell Accuses Israel of Racism Against its Arab Lawmakers

Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC falsely accused Israel of racism with the following tweet about the protests that occurred inside the Knesset plenum during the Vice President’s speech:

Knesset Reporter & Analyst for The Jerusalem Post Lahav Harkov responded to Mitchell with th following Tweet:

Take a look at the video below.  This is not your typical protest in what is supposed to be respected environment.

The fact is, the Black Caucus would never be removed from the congress because they would never disrupt a foreign dignitary’s speech with such viceral hatred.  Unfortunately Andrea Mitchell and her leftist friends over a MSNBC continue to create an intersection between the Black civil rights movement and Arab/Palestnian rights in Israel.  No wherre do Arabs live more free in the Middle East than in Israel.

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Mike Pence, Israel, and the Final Redemption

There are moments when we recognize that the world is shifting and that something momentous is happening. We all have our view of the future and what it will be.  Those of us who are believers tend to have varied accounts of the End of Days.  Despite the many interpretations of Biblical passages dealing with the final Redemption all agree on the main points.  These involve a return of the people of Israel to their ancestral homeland within the borders of their ancient Kingdom.  This return appears to occur after millenia of years wandering in exile.  The Land which lay fallow suddenly sprouts again and more than that the People of Israel become a leading force for good throughout the whoe world.  Of course there are prophecies and accounts of trepidation as envisioned in multiple chapters in Zecharia and Ezekiel, but there is not saying to what extent these prophecies must occur because each prophet spoke in generalities.

Most of the prophecies detailing the return of the Jewish people to their Divinely ordained homeland have occurred.  The miraculous wars fought against all odds and the continuing ingathering of the exiles and now the next stage which appears to be about locating and integrating the lost tribes back into Israel is already well under way.

The 70th Year Marks a Crossing Point

The number 70 in Judaism is a critical number.  Our sages recognize it as an end of one stage and a beginning of the next.  70 played an important role at the end of the first exile when it was clear that King Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Israel after 70 years just as the prophets said he would.

We are now at an important inflection point in world history.  This is the 70th year since Israel’s founding and we have a President and Vice President in America that not only won the election last year in miraculous fashion, but seem to understand that they are meant to play a pivotal role in history.

Mike Pence knows the Bible and with this knowledge it is no surprise that when he spoke at the Knesset yesterday he mentioned the number 70 and its connection to the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital.

Mike Pence spoke on this fact with the following words:

“Seventy years ago, the United States was proud to be the first nation in the world to recognize the State of Israel.  But as you well know, the work we began on that day was left unfinished, for while the United States recognized your nation, one administration after another refused to recognize your capital.

But just last month, President Donald Trump made history.  He righted a 70-year wrong; he kept his word to the American people when he announced that the United States of America will finally acknowledge Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. 

The Jewish people’s unbreakable bond to this sacred city reaches back more than 3,000 years.  It was here, in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, that Abraham offered his son, Isaac, and was credited with righteousness for his faith in God.

It was here, in Jerusalem, that King David consecrated the capital of the Kingdom of Israel.  And since its rebirth, the modern State of Israel has called this city the seat of its government.”

The Vilna Gaon said that the final redemption will occur in a similar fashion as the redemption during the Second Temple period. That is up until the very end.  Pence paid homage to the very fact that the people of Israel are the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He made a clear connection to the miraculous rise of the Nation of Israel in its historic homeland to the final redemption.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev clearly states that the end will not begin on Pesach, but rather Purim.  He is not talking about actual dates, but concepts. Purim is about the miraculous wrapped within the guise of the mundane.  So too now.  What seems like simple politics is the Redemption literally unfolding in front of our eyes.

Esav’s Head Can Be Rectified While Its Body Dies

Our sages teach us that the Roman Empire and the subsequent Catholic Church and now the decadent morality of the Western World are the outgrowth of Esav, Jacob’s brother.  Yet there is a curious midrash, which details the burial of Jacob and the subsequent decapitation of Esav (who tried to stop it).  Esav’s head mysteriously rolled into the Cave of the Patriarchs along with Jacob’s body.

We know from extra biblical sources that Esav knew and believed in Torah and the Creator, but his body’s lusts and drives overtook his reasoning and drove his decisions.  The midrash I detailed above indicates that at the end Esav’s head can be and will be redeemed and come to Jacob’s aid.

There is no question about it. America is far different from any other nation aside from Israel.  In the cosmic archetype structure of the universe, the European drive to destroy Israel as well as individual freedom appears to be analogous to Esav’s body.  Juxtaposed to this is America, which sought out to redeem and return Christianity to its original source.

Pence said the following in regards to America’s special reverence to the Bible and Christianity’s Hebrew roots:

“My country’s very first settlers also saw themselves as pilgrims, sent by Providence, to build a new Promised Land.  The songs and stories of the people of Israel were their anthems, and they faithfully taught them to their children, and do to this day.  And our founders, as others have said, turned to the wisdom of the Hebrew Bible for direction, guidance, and inspiration.

America’s first President, George Washington, wrote with favor to “the children of the stock of Abraham.”  Our second President, John Adams, declared that the Jews, in his words, “have done more to civilize man than any other nation.”

And your story inspired my forebears to create what our 16th President called a “new birth of freedom.”  And down through the generations, the American people became fierce advocates of the Jewish people’s aspiration to return to the land of your forefathers to claim your own new birth of freedom in your beloved homeland.” 

With Esav’s cosmic head now severed from its decadent European body, the American ideal can be restored to its true roots.  While European leaders deny the miraculous return of the Jewish people to their homeland, Americans do the opposite.  Mike Pence said as much with the following:

“The Jewish people held fast to a promise through all the ages, written so long ago, that “even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens,” from there He would gather and bring you back to the land which your fathers possessed.

Through a 2,000-year exile, the longest of any people, anywhere, through conquests and expulsions, inquisitions and pogroms, the Jewish people held on to this promise, and they held on to it through the longest and darkest of nights.  A night that Elie Wiesel proclaimed “seven times sealed.”  A night that transformed the small faces of children into smoke under a silent sky.  A night that consumed the faith of so many and that challenges the faith of so many still.

And tomorrow, when I stand with my wife at Yad Vashem to honor the 6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust, we will marvel at the faith and resilience of your people, who just three years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to resurrect yourselves, to reclaim a Jewish future, and to rebuild the Jewish state.  

And this April, we will mark the day when the Jewish people answered that ancient question — can a country be born in a day, can a nation be born in a moment? — as the State of Israel celebrates the 70th anniversary of its birth.  

As you prepare to commemorate this historic milestone, I say, along with the good people of Israel, here and around the world: Shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu la’z’man ha’zeh.” 

Never during exile have we the Jewish people, the Children of Israel received such praise and admiration and offers of true partnership to fulfill the Creator’s will.  It is precisely this that seems to indicate that we may not be in exile anymore.  The 70 years since the creation of the State of Israel is almost up.  It is this 70 years that was a transition between exile and redemption.

We have been so busy building our nation that it takes rightous gentiles yearning to be part of G-D’s grand plan to tell us what is happening before us.  The Nation of Israel is meant to be a light to the world; a magnet for others to come and join us for the work ahead.  The next stage of the Redemption is this work.

 

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Will the Left’s Putsch Against Mike Flynn Trigger World War Three?

Now that Mike Flynn has been forced to resign from the Trump administration, the burgeoneing detente between Russia and the USA appears to be in tatters.  Without Flynn, the administration appears to be left without a guide when it comes to Moscow.  This has caused some in the White House like Vice President Mike Pence to fall back on old talking points with respect to Russia and NATO.

“Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground which as you know President Trump believes can be found,” Pence said. “This is President Trump’s promise: we will stand with Europe today and every day, because we are bound together by the same noble ideals – freedom, democracy, justice and the rule of law.

“We have been faithful for generations — and as you keep faith with us, under President Trump we will always keep faith with you.

“The fates of the United States and Europe are intertwined. Your struggles are our struggles. Your success is our success. And ultimately, we walk into the future together.

“The United States is and will always be your greatest ally. Be assured that President Trump and our people are truly devoted to our transatlantic union.”

Even Trump has said that Russia should return Crimea to the Ukraine.  With Flynn out, the verbal agreements that were made with Russia are gone.  While this does not mean Trump will follow the playbook of Obama, the Russians are taking no chances that President Trump may seek to stablize his administration taking a far tougher stance against Putin’s Russia.

In response to Flynn’s ousting Russia has positoned SSV-175 Viktor Leonov off the coast of Delaware.  Fox News Reported the following last week:

“The ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, last sailed near the U.S. in April 2015, an official said. It was also seen in Havana in January 2015.

Capable of intercepting communications or signals, known as SIGINT, the ship can also measure U.S. Navy sonar capabilities, a separate official said.

The Russian spy ship is also armed with surface-to-air missiles.“

It has also been reported that a pair of Russian Su-24 jets passed within close proximity of the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter on February 16th while the ship conducted routine maritime operations in international waters.

Why Does the Left Want War WIth Russia?

The Left understands it lost the election, but as usual it pays little respect to Democracy.  They have tried from the beginning to paint Trump as a war monger that will bring chaos to the world.  Yet, in a strange irony they are now pushing Trump to go forward and launch the war they wanted. War with Russia serves two functions for the Soros backed  Left as well as the neo-conservative military establishment.

The first is to destroy the potential for dismantling the globalist regime and the second is to reaffirm in Americans’ minds that Trump must be removed for sheer recklessness. In a sense Soros and his minions get the war they always wanted and blame it on their arch nemesis.

The next few weeks wll be key in learning just off kilter the Flynn resingaton has put the Trump administration.  If Trump backed by Steve Bannon can stick to the original script, the pustch against Flynn will be remembered as the international Left’s last maneuver before their fall, but if not, a war between the super powers is in the offing.

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Israel in the Trump Era

What can we expect from President-elect Donald Trump’s administration?

 

The positions that Trump struck during the presidential campaign were sometimes inconsistent and even contradictory. So it is impossible to forecast precisely what he will do once in office. But not everything is shrouded in mystery. Indeed, some important characteristics of his administration are already apparent.

First of all, President Barack Obama’s legacy will die the moment he leaves the White House on January 20. Republicans may not agree on much. But Trump and his party do agree that Obama’s policies must be abandoned and replaced. And they will work together to rollback all of Obama’s actions as president.

On the domestic policy front this means first and foremost that Obamacare will be repealed and replaced with health industry reforms that open the medical insurance market to competition.

With the support of the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump will end Obama’s push to reshape the US Supreme Court in the image of the activist, indeed, authoritarian Israeli Supreme Court. During his four year term, Trump may appoint as many as four out of nine justices. In so doing he will shape the court for the next generation.

Trump made clear during the race that the justices he selects will oppose the Obama-led leftist plan to transform the Court into an imperial judiciary that determines social and cultural norms and legislates from the bench.

Trump will also clean out the IRS. Under Obama, the IRS became an instrument of political warfare. Conservative and right wing pro-Israel groups were systematically discriminated against and targeted for abuse. It is possible to assume that Trump will fire the IRS officials who have been involved in this discriminatory abuse of power.

To be sure, much is still unclear about Trump’s foreign policy. But here too, certain things are already known. Trump will vacate the US’s signature from the nuclear deal with Iran.

Trump will not be able to repair the damage the deal has already caused – at least not immediately. He will not be able to reimpose the multilateral and UN Security Council sanctions on Iran that the nuclear deal cancelled. Such a move will require prolonged negotiations and their conclusion is far from assured.

Trump will likewise be unable to take back the billions of dollars that Iran has already received due to the abrogation of economic sanctions and through cash payoffs from the Obama administration.

At the same time, from his first day in office, Trump will change the trajectory of US policy towards Iran. He will oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. He will oppose Iran’s rise to regional hegemony.

A second conclusion that it is already possible to draw about the Trump presidency is that Trump will be much more like the hands off Ronald Reagan than the hands on Obama. His past as a businessman along with his lack of governmental or political experience will lead Trump to set general policy guidelines and goals and delegate responsibility for crafting suitable policies and programs to his cabinet secretaries and advisors.

This means that personnel will very much be policy in the Trump administration. Whereas Obama’s cabinet members and advisors have been more or less interchangeable since Obama himself determined everything from the details of his policies to the ways that the policies would be sold to the public (or hidden from the public), and implemented, Trump’s pick of advisors will be strategically significant.

Clearly it is too early to know who Trump’s advisors and cabinet members will be. But there is good reason for Israel to be encouraged by the advisors who have worked with Trump during the campaign.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence is one of the most pro-Israel policymakers in America. Former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich is an outspoken ally of Israel and of the US-Israel alliance. Likewise, former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, former senator Rick Santorum, retired general Mike Flynn, and former UN ambassador John Bolton are all extraordinary champions of the US alliance with Israel.

Trump’s Israel affairs advisors during the campaign, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt are also among the strongest advocates of the US-Israel alliance that have arisen in decades.

The striking friendliness of the Trump election team is even more notable when we consider what Israel would have faced from a Hillary Clinton administration. Clinton’s cabinet-in-waiting at the George Soros-funded and John Podesta-run Center for American Progress contained no serious advocates of the US-Israel alliance.

And her stable of advisors were not merely indifferent to Israel.

The Wikileaks revelations from Podesta’s emails, like the correspondences published by Judicial Watch from Clinton’s tenure as secretary made clear that Clinton’s team included several advisors with deep-seated hostility if not animus toward Israelis and toward the Israeli government.

The third thing that is already clear about the nature of the Trump administration is that it will not hesitate to abandon received wisdom on a whole host of issues and initiate policies that the bipartisan policy elites wouldn’t be caught dead even talking about.

Trump’s victory was first and foremost a defeat for the American elite, what Prof. Angelo Codevilla memorably referred to as America’s “ruling class.”

Trump’s campaign did not merely target the Democratic establishment. He attacked the Republican establishment as well. True, in his victory speech Trump said that he intends to heal the rifts in American society – presumably starting with his own party. But at least one thing ought to be clear about that reunification. As the president-elect, Trump will set the terms of the healing process.

There is every reason to expect that at a minimum, Trump will not soon forgive the Republicans who refused to support and even opposed his presidential bid. Members of the NeverTrump camp will be denied positions and influence over the Trump administration and sent into the political desert.

Another establishment that fell on its sword in this election is the American Jewish establishment. Led by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish establishment, including its largest donors, stood almost as one in its support for Clinton. The American Jewish leadership placed their partisan preferences above their communal interests and responsibilities. In so doing they enfeebled the community in a manner that will be difficult to repair.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have anti-Semites in their ranks. The Jewish establishment ignored and pretended away the Democratic anti-Semites, even when they were burning Israeli flags at the Democratic convention. They said nothing when anti-Israel ravings that were at best borderline anti-Semitic of senior Clinton advisors like Thomas Pickering and Anne Marie Slaughter were published by Judicial Watch.

On the other hand, the Jewish establishment castigated Trump as anti-Semitic for the presence of anti-Semites like David Duke on the fringes of the Republican Party. Legitimate criticisms of anti-Israel financier George Soros were condemned as anti-Semitic while truly anti-Semitic assaults on Trump donor Sheldon Adelson by Clinton backers went unaddressed.

The consequence of the Jewish establishment’s almost total mobilization for Clinton is clear. The Trump White House won’t have an open door policy for those who falsely accused Trump of anti-Semitism.

Jewish Americans are going to have to either oust the leaders of the groups that put their party before their community or establish new organizations to defend their interests. Whatever path is chosen, the process of rebuilding the communal infrastructure the community’s leaders have wrecked will be long, difficult and expensive.

Unlike the American Jewish community, for Israel, the defeat of the American establishment is a positive development. The American foreign policy elite’s default bipartisan position on Israel was bad for both Israel and the health and reliability of its alliance with the US.

As I explained in my book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, there was a dismaying consistency in US policy towards Israel that ran from Bill Clinton’s administration through the George W. Bush administration and on to the Obama administration.

At least since the Clinton years, the received wisdom of the American foreign policy elite has been that the US must seek to swiftly cause Israel to sign a deal with the PLO. The contours of the deal are similarly clear to all concerned. Israel must surrender control over all or most of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and transfer the areas, more or less Jew free, to the PLO.

This bipartisan view is inherently hostile to Israel. It places all the responsibility for making peace on Israel. And as the sole responsible party, Israel is also the sole party that is guilty for the absence of peace. The flipside is similarly dismal. Palestinians are absolved of responsibility for terrorism, hatred and political warfare against Israel.

The anti-Israel hostility inherent in the two-state paradigm has brought on a situation where even pro-Israel US officials end up joining their anti-Israel colleagues in bearing down on Israel to act in manners that are inimical both to its national security and to the very concept of a US-Israel alliance. The foreign policy ruling class’s commitment to the two-state paradigm has blinded them to Israel’s strategic importance to the US and caused them to see the US’s only stable ally in the region as a drag on US interests.

Many of Trump’s advisors, including Gingrich, whose name has been raised as a leading candidate either to serve as Trump’s White House chief of staff or as Secretary of State, have rejected this received wisdom. In a Republican presidential debate in 2011, Gingrich referred to the Palestinians as an “invented people,” and noted that they indoctrinate their children to perceive Jews as subhuman and seek their annihilation. For his statement of fact, Gingrich was brutally assaulted by Democratic and Republican elites.

But he never rescinded his statement.

Trump’s election provides Israel with the first opportunity in fifty years to reshape its alliance with the US.

This new alliance must be based a common understanding and respect for what Israel has to offer the US as well as the limits of what the US can offer Israel. The limits of US assistance are in large part the consequences of the many genies that Obama unleashed during the past eight years. And the opportunities will come more in areas related to Israel’s relations with the Palestinians and the political war being waged against it by the Europeans and the international left than to the challenges posed by the ascendance of Islamism in the Middle East.

To be sure, Trump is inconsistent. But from what we do know we must recognize that his rise is a deflection point in US history.

It is a rare moment where things that were unimaginable a month ago are possible. And if we play our cards right, like the American people, Israel stands to gain in ways we never dreamed.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

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